


Aspect Guide - Stars

by parchmentEngineer



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Replay Value
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:12:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parchmentEngineer/pseuds/parchmentEngineer
Summary: Just a little thing I wrote up in my second session, for my native aspect. If any of you out there are Stars players, make sure to give this one a read.





	1. Summary and Abilities

/----------------\  
|   INTRODUCTION   |  
\\----------------/

My name is parchmentEngineer, and I am a native Guard of Stars. I think that's the right terminology. I'm rather new to this (even though I've read godliestGrinding's FAQ). I'm halfway through the second session, and my fellow replayer uglyPurification has introduced me to the "wonderful world of FAQ writing". So, he suggested that I make a guide about my first session. Nobody's done Stars yet, so I get to help fill one of the countless voids in this game.

Also, if anyone could help me with uploading these chapters to the furthest ring, that would be great. Knowing me, I'll probably put the wrong timestamp on it and publish it years in the past. Also, does anyone still use these servers? I don't know if there is another server that people now use, so any help with that would be awesome.

/--------\  
|   STARS   |  
\\--------/

Stars, as an aspect, revolves around attraction, be it physical, emotional, or prophecy based. Stars is the opposite of hope, so it uses attraction and acceptance where hope uses rejection and denial. I'm not that good at making friends, but Sburb gave me a title that revolves around helping. Or, in other words, Sburb was normal. Anyways, being a Star player is a single edge sword, but nobody knows which edge it is. If you're a Guard of Stars, you're going to find yourself in a lot of situations where you need to protect allies. Is it because you drift toward those kinds of situations, or do those drift toward you? Nobody knows. Still, your friends will thank you for saving their butt multiple times, so I can't complain.

In terms of abilities and combat applications, Stars mainly revolves around gravity. You can walk on walls, roll enemies around, that sort of stuff. Being a class relating to prophecy, you also get a good amount of scrying abilities and psybuffs. So really, this Aspect can do almost everything. The one downside to that is that it doesn't excel at anything. You don't get a lot of direct damage abilities, your psybuffs are outshone by Heart, and both Mind and Space can scry better than you. Still, this aspect is better than nothing if those aspects don't exist in your session.

One last thing to note about Stars in general. They tend to want to make new friends a lot, but they aren't the best at keeping them. We Star players are constantly attracted to new things, traveling to new lands, making new friends, and we don't like to stick around. Fortunately, if you're a Stars player, you'll be okay with that. Star players are good at accepting things, and shrugging things off. In fact, acceptance is one of the things that Star players excel at.

/------------------\  
|     STAR ABILITIES     |  
\\------------------/

Like any other aspect, Stars has a large number of abilities that can get you through your session. Here's a list of all the ones I've encountered, sorted by ability type.

COMBAT:  
* [Omelette Sandwich]: One of the few real combat abilities you get. It makes gravity increase by a factor of one hundred for a fraction of a second, in a roughly column-shaped area. Unfortunately, it has a rather high pluck cost, so save it for the big ones.  
* [Rustless Fall]: Creates a small sphere of gravitational attraction that you can move around at will. Often called the "Katamari Imp Bowling" power because of how it works. It has a pretty reasonable pluck cost, too. Just be careful you don't roll up an ally or consort.  
* [Sky High]: Allows you to manipulate gravity for any object you touch, including yourself. Think basic lashings from The Way of Kings, if you've read that book. Works great with fist kind, and has next to no pluck cost.  
* [Planetary Arena]: Rips out a large chunk of the ground around you and suspends it in midair, giving it a gravity field. Useful for trapping a small horde of imps dispatching them easily, and then challenging the rest of the enemies. It doesn't have a very high pluck cost, either.  
* [Paradoxical Meteor Shower]: Allows you to rip balls of earth from the ground and fling them at enemies. Each meteor also has a small gravitational field around it, making it good for crowd control. [Rustless Fall] is still way better, though.  
* [Shooting Stars]: Makes a lot of stars rain from the sky. Good for dealing with groups of enemies, but you might catch yourself or your allies in the rain. Medium pluck cost.

PSYBUFFS:  
* [The Stars Will Shine]: A passive ability, and usually the first one you learn. It gives you an acceptance over fate, and a increased ability to shrug off bad news. Very useful for this aspect.  
* [Catch the Falling Sky]: Makes someone accept the situation they're in. It doesn't take away any grief or sadness, but makes people prepared to handle those feelings. Pretty pluck costly, though, so use it somewhere you can regain your pluck.  
* [You Were Meant For Each Other]: A very interesting psybuff, in that it makes two people (possibly including yourself) more attracted/friendly to each other. Useful for giving someone a friend in hopes that they will calm down. People tend not to like it if you mess with their emotions in this way, so ask before using except in the most dire of circumstances.

SCRYING:  
* [North Star]: This ability lets you see, vaguely, a goal in the distant future. This works kind of like Time's [Look Into the Future], except it's a little more vague and not nearly as binding.  
* [Stargaze]: Very powerful, for a non-scrying aspect. This ability allows you to focus on an "Anchor Point" and see what outcomes are attached to it. For example, focusing of a battlefield will let you see when battle will happen there. Also, there's a strange glitch with this power that makes your Star symbol replace one pupil, but not both. Sburb is weird.

OTHER:  
* [Starwalk]: Like [The Stars Will Shine], this passive ability is one of the first you will ever learn as a Star player. It allows you to do basic gravity manipulation, like walk up walls and stuff. Way more fun to use than it should, and can break so many dungeons. However, it doesn't work in the Underworld, for some reason. All your gravity powers are a little off there.  
* [Look How They Shine For You]: Yeah, I don't know why they called it this. When you use this ability, allies in a small radius temporarily get their Abstratus temporarily replaced with Starkind. Useful if used properly, throws people off balance if used suddenly.  
* [Ocean Star]: This ability. This is the most well-known Star ability, and for good reason. It will create a pseudo-star above your land, and the star will increase in size as you travel. And then, in your moment of need...  
* [Ocean Star Falling]: If you are in a desperate situation, accept that situation, and have forgotten about this ability, [Ocean Star Falling] will auto cast. When, and if, it does, your Ocean Star will fall on you, giving a full health vial restore, flight, stat buffs, and other wonderful effects. You remember the feeling of first becoming god tier? This is that feeling TIMES TEN. The major problem with it is that it only activates if you don't want it, making it hard to use consistently. Also, you usually auto cast it when your Berserk Trigger activates.  
* [Galaxy Hearts]: This ability is a weird buff that gives you more power based on how many allies are there. It takes the stats of all players within a small radius from you and adds their stats to yours. If you fight with friends, this is a lifesaver.  
* [Bridge of Stars]: Useful for both transportation and combat, this ability allows you to think of a place, and then rips out a chunk of land to carry you to that place. It usually gets used to carry people between planets, but I've heard of a session where someone managed to one-hit the Black King with this thing. Also, two important oversights with this ability. If you say you want to go to your friend, the chunk of land will land right on your friend, squishing him. Additionally, if your land spawns a specific type of underling, then they'll spawn on top of wherever you land. Keep that in mind.

If I've forgotten anything, or you got an ability that I didn't, post it in the comments. I'll add it onto the list up here.

/------------------\  
|   BERSERK TRIGGER   |  
\\------------------/

Generally, when Star players Berserk Trigger, they do so when someone tries to pull away from something, be it retreating from a battle or trying to break a prophecy. If this happens and your Star player gets sufficiently upset about it, they will cast either [Galaxy Hearts] or [Planetary Arena], with the help of [Ocean Star Falling]. When this happens, your best bet is to run as far as possible. [Galaxy Hearts] quickly runs out of power if no friends are near, and [Planetary Arena] is rather small-scale. Drop-kicks are dodgy at best, while hugs are the worst possible option. Just let them cool themselves down, and you'll be fine.

/--------------\  
|   CONCLUSION   |  
\\--------------/

Whew. I probably shouldn't have written that all in one sitting. My sessions's Space player has been trying to message me for about an hour now, and I haven't even noticed. I'll text him back, do some more quests, and get back to you soon with a chapter about other odds and ends that come with playing Stars.


	2. Whisperings and Denizens

/----------------\  
|   INTRODUCTION   |  
\\----------------/

Welp, my session's taken a bad left turn. thunderCounselor (the Space player) called to tell me that the Time player was dead. She confirmed the kill and everything. So now she and uglyPurification are roaming around the Land of Tundra and Carbon and Frogs, hunting for those slimy green things, while I sit here, doing nothing. Also, connection to the Skaianet servers is down. I'll probably upload all these chapters at once when I get connection restored. For now, here's the second part of my guide. Good luck, wherever you are.

/--------------\  
|   WHISPERINGS   |  
\\--------------/

One thing that many of the guides I've read neglect is the Whisperings of your Aspect. These things saved me more times than I can count, and I love them. If you're a Star player like I was, then you're Whispering will be the Drift. The Drift will usually manifest as a gentle pulling of gravity, usually viewed and listened to through the tides on your land. For me, the rivers had high and low tides, and they made noises as they changed. That was my Whispering. This isn't to be confused with the Wave (Might's whispering), which doesn't have as much to do with tides. The [Ocean Star] also seems to have a lot to do with the tides. Maybe it and the Drift are working together to form a replacement for your home planet's moon.

Your Skaian Summoning will generally be pockets of gravitational distortion. Maybe you feel lighter here, or maybe gravity is rotated 45 degrees. Either way, you'll feel right at home here. If you find yourself in one, do yourself a favor and build some relationship with your Aspect and Whispering. The best thing to watch at one of these is the tide, which will do some weird things to water. For me, a river flowed uphill to fill a pool at high tide, then gravity rotated at low tide and the water filled another pool. It was spectacular to watch.

The favors that the Drift will do for you will generally be gravity- or water-based. For me, it made me lighter when I was fighting hard, and made enemies heavier when they had the upper hand. It would change gravity suddenly, but I would always be ready for it. It would flood the battlefield under the underling's feet when fighting near a river. A really cool application of the Drift, if a bit annoying for your co-players, is when all the grist in defeated enemies shoots straight toward you. Make sure to share every once in a while. Even when not on your land, you'll see water in glasses flow slightly toward you.

/------------\  
|    DENIZENS    |  
\\------------/

I only know of two denizens for Stars players. One was the one that I had, and the other was told to me by one of my session mates who had Stars a few sessions ago. If you had any others, let me know in the comments.

* ASTRAIOS: Male, roughly humanoid. He's okay as far as denizens go, but he has a habit of suddenly changing the gravity on you if you displease him. And  
unlike when the Drift does it, this one does not feel good. He also has a sword, called Star Fury, that auto casts [Shooting Stars] when you  
swing it. Like all other denizen weapons, use a captchacamera to get the code.  
* PYROEIS: Male again, snake-like. He was described to me as having a ball of fire for a head, almost like a miniature sun. He also has a fiery temper, so don't displease him.

/--------------\  
|   CONCLUSION   |  
\\--------------/

That's all I know about Stars. I've gone over how your aspect works, how to be in touch with your Whisperings, what powers you have at your disposal, and what you can expect from your denizen. I wish you good luck as you play your game and hope your session doesn't have the same fate as mine. Though, from what I've heard, the fate of "one player dead, session barely continues" seems to be the norm in this terrible game.

This has been parchmentEngineer, signing off.


	3. Other Abilities

/---------------\  
|   Other Abilities   |  
\\---------------/

 

I'm almost finished with another session of Stars. I rolled the Page of Stars this time around, and things have been pretty fun. The game chose to give me some abilities this time around that I didn't get last time, so I decided to tack on another chapter to cover them.

 

* [Starstruck]: A simple stunning ability. Point at a target (you can whip out a dramatic pose) and your ideogram flashes and blinds him. Or her. Do underlings have genders?

* [Polar Star]: Yes, I get the Cave Story reference. This ability shoots out a small laser out of your hands, which you can charge up to make bigger. After defeating your denizen, it gets upgraded to pierce, do more damage, and have a longer beam. A pretty good offensive ability, but not at all thematic with the rest of the Stars powers.

* [Star Pull]: Pulls an object into your hand. A little like [Joker's Wild], a bugged Breath power.

* [In Orbit]: Lets you move or rotate your [Planetary Arena]. It moves really slowly, so don't try to smash it into people. Instead, use...

* [Death Star]: Summons a huge meteor, then slams it onto the battlefield. Uses up pluck like it's nobody's business. Back in the first chapter, when I said I cast [Planetary Arena] for my Berserk Trigger, I probably actually cast this by accident.

* [The Stars Align]: Buffs all allies touching your [Planetary Arena]. It interprets "touching" as literal, so go barefoot when using this power.

* [First Star I See Tonight]: Grants a very low-level wish. If your wish is to complex for this power (90% of the time I used it), it gives an error message and consumes pluck anyways. It also raises your Others corruption slightly, so don't use unless you think you're Angel-corrupted.

* [Redirection]: Redirects projectiles into a nearby object. Basically a Reverse Lashing from  _The Way of Kings_ (if your presession has it, read it!)

* [End of Days]: Berserk Trigger stuff right here. Basically, it gives you 30 seconds to get out of there, then opens a black hole for 30 seconds. DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU DON'T VALUE THE PLANET YOU'RE ON!


End file.
